Ghent physics (warning: you will probably leave this post with the Eagles stuck in your head)

I need to preface this all by saying that I really love my neighborhood. I can walk to just about anything I need: coffee, stamps, a rockin' short haircut, soba noodles, fish tacos (wow, a lot of what I apparently need turns out to be food), second-hand clothes, library books, yoga, all within walking distance. For crying out loud, there's a frozen yogurt buffet a block from my house, and the block after that has an independent movie house where you can get a chai latté to go with your popcorn, with a video rental place attached that's organized by sections like "Spaghetti Westerns," "British Horror" and "Troubled Youth".

There's only one problem: it's like the fucking Hotel California. Some invisible force prevents you from ever being able to leave, and then whenever you do, you sort of wish you hadn't.

It's easy enough to get to work and back. But if you ever want to go anywhere recreationally, you had seriously better factor in some extra lead time. It's proportional to how far you want to go, too: whenever we undertake the drive from Virginia back to Michigan, we typically manage to vacate the 5-block radius around our apartment at whatever time we were shooting for plus an hour and a half or so. Because we suddenly remember we need to go to the bank, buy a baby gift, mail a letter and get another cup of coffee for the road, and even though it's all right here, right next to each other, that's just mysteriously how long it ends up taking. I can't explain it; I suspect it's just some kind of powerful magnetic field put in place to punish you for endeavoring to venture past the city limits by slowing down time and making simple tasks take far, far longer than they would normally take, perhaps in the hope that you'll give up and just say "fuck it" and go to the Donut Dinette, which is on the corner of your street, which half the time you do, and forget about whatever else it was you were going to do in some place that is not Ghent, if there even is such a place, which after a while you seriously begin to doubt.

For instance, this afternoon I was invited to Olde Town Portsmouth, which is approximately 2.5 miles away, for a drink with a friend (whom I was already somewhat considering demoting to acquaintance status, and now my mind is made up). In order to accomplish this I had to drive, but the hubs was parking me in, so I decided to take his car, which he reported was nearly out of gas. So I went to the BP station right up the street to fill it up (3 blocks south), but the BP station on our street was out of unleaded, so I had to go to a different gas station in the opposite direction from where I eventually needed to be (4 blocks east of that), and of course every stoplight between the two gas stations (4 of them) was ordered to turn red just as I was pulling up to it. So I filled up the car at the 2nd gas station, turned right back around and hit the same four red stoplights except in the opposite direction, and eventually made it through the Midtown Tunnel to Portsmouth only fifteen minutes later than expected, whereupon another series of stoplights delayed me another 10 minutes in arriving at my destination.*

I don't really want to talk about what happened when I got there. The restaurant was cozy and dark inside and the food was yummy, like what would happen if a bunch of hobbits decided to open a tapas restaurant. My friend patiently listened to me dork out about my research project, which turned out to be collateral against regaling me with the dizzying details of her increasingly creepy love life that involves internet-dating pretty much every configuration of sexual preferences available to us within our species, just before sticking me with more than my fair share of the check, and it occurs to me that "collateral" is perhaps not the proper term here, because when you think of collateral you think of something that you get back at the end of whatever it is you are doing, whereas there is absolutely no way I will ever get that hour and a half of my life back, nor the 75 bucks I laid out for gas, beer and taters, precious, and I will never be able to scrub my brain hard enough to unlearn that "poly" is internet-dating-speak for dudes who take their wives on dates with girls they meet on the internet. Nice.**

Thankfully all the traffic lights on my way back to Ghent were green. Gentle reader, I believe that the moral of this story is self-evident. And now you have the Eagles stuck in your head, and I'm actually kind of fine with that, because imagine how I feel.

*Side note: while I was fuming about this, I actually got honked at, because one of the stoplights I was sitting at waiting for it to turn green was not a stoplight at all, but instead a stop sign, and fyi those do not in fact turn green at all, but instead stay the same color the whole time (red with white parts that spell "stop").

**In case you're wondering, your alternative lifestyle, whatever it is, is fine with me, but if it's much more complicated than you like girls or you like boys or you like girls and boys, a heads-up before you start trying to tell me all about it would be ever so appreciated.

Aaaah. Mexico.

Back in Mexico. There's a smile in my Spanish when I speak here, a gentleness that overtakes me. Also, I have this heightened awareness of the absurd circumstance of being a gringa in Mexico. Mostly it feels like people regard me with a sort of bemusement, above all. Many are incredibly helpful; some seem to think that good luck rubs off of me like I'm a chimney-sweep or something; still others are just straight up curious about me. Two reporters chased me down yesterday to ask a foreigner how she celebrates Christmas, and seemed a bit disappointed when I answered that it's a time to practice a bit more good will, tolerance, patience and kindness toward others, hang out with your family, and eat. I guess my answer wasn't very exotic -- on the upside, I might wind up on the six o'clock news for all the right reasons!

Stop me if you've heard this one, or just indulge me instead: there's a game I like to play here an ex-pat friend of mine taught me. It consists, very simply, of spotting the incongruence. The theory is that, wherever you go in Mexico, at any given moment, there's something completely, totally, obviously out of place within your field of vision. A costume shop at the bus station. A truck driving along with its rear-view mirrors lit on fire in honor of the Virgen de Guadalupe. A man painted silver from head to toe. And if you can't find the incongruence, you're probably it.

Mexico assaults the senses. It's a loud, bumpy, spicy, bright place and it always smells like something, whether the sting of diesel exhaust, the heady fragrance of frying chiles, or the slightly ammoniac smell of fresh tortillas. Much of it is homely; some of it is sublimely beautiful, and it's all jumbled together: encimado, they'd say here. On-topped. You have to adjust your vision in order to shut out different kinds of noise, to become blind to different types of visual interference, in order to find the beauty. It takes practice, but when you manage it, you're richly rewarded.

It comes home with me, too, this gentleness. Greater openness to chance experiences and encounters. La entrega: a giving over. With it comes greater patience for unexpected setbacks, and renewed faith that things - all things - have a way of working themselves out. If your problem has a solution, a Mexican proverb says, why worry? And if your problem has no solution, why worry? If I'm mindful I can sustain this state of mind for a time. Three years away though...I was definitely due for a re-charge.

Retrospective

Okay, so it's been an obscenely long time since I posted here, and I'm now slinking back with my figurative tail between my legs thanks to the gentle exhortations of my new neighbor. I thought that for this first post in over a year, I'd bring things up to date by looking at my most recent (if that word even applies) posts with the perspective that a year or more provides. So here goes:

My university is small enough that word seems to have gotten out about me; either that or students are posting mad comments on ratemyprofessor.com; either that or I'm much more effectively conveying my indifference toward my students' hardships because the Lame Excuse Quotient has significantly dropped over the past six months or so.

My mojo and I are still largely estranged, although we have attempted reconciliation on a handful of frosty occasions, and we haven't given up on working things out.

Christmas Chimp passed from this life shortly after I wrote about him, and Hedgehog Version 7.0 reigns supreme over pantry and hallway. Grendl often disappears into the pantry and moans longingly for her while sticking his head out and shooting us pointed glances from under the pantry curtain (a pose which gives him a striking resemblance to Obi-Wan Kenobi).

I confirmed that it was indeed Rachael "Raykle" Ray who stole my stuffing recipe. Either that, or some time over the course of the last year or so I convinced myself that I confirmed this. I am indifferent to which of these things is true.

I still love Julie Andrews, Halloween, and my #1 pop song versions.

Grendl's dog park behavior became too humpalicious, alienating other dog park goers and supplanting his enjoyment of things like Running Around and Doing His Business, so we don't go there as often as we once did.

I have not found a satisfactory alternative to: Kleinstuck, Asylum woods, Martini's antipasto salad, Bluegrass Breakfast, the Heritage Company, Bank Street Market, my twenties.

As predicted by gretchencb, I have found a satisfactory alternative to: the Vine neighborhood, the Corner Bar.

As predicted by madamechuchita, I have not needed to find a satisfactory alternative to: Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. I have also attempted mastery of some of Just Good Food's recipes, to varying degrees of success.

I have found a whole new list of reasons to miss the 10th floor of Sprau Tower, as well as all its other floors, most of which have to do with my gratitude to the professors who didn't just provide me with an education, but also with some much-needed fetchin' up.

Also: the gentleman heretofore known as "the neighbs" is now, officially, "the hubs". And we're still dancing.

And Canada is still a magical place where sun shines out of everyone's ass; the perfect place, in fact, if not for the weather. Which is terrible for, like, half the year.

my own private internet

So, perhaps this isn't the most propitious topic with which to reappear on the blogosphere after a prolonged absence, but today I want to communicate one simple message:

I hereby reclaim the right to determine the extent and the nature of my relationship with social networking technologies.

This comes after months of being inundated with text messages, upbraided for not updating my facebook page, and chastised for not twittering. With regard to this last, I will only say that as far as I'm concerned the name speaks for itself. I have spent years trying to surround myself with interesting and thoughtful people and thereby reduce the amount of "twitter" in my life. The other two points, I'd like to discuss in greater detail.

First off, is it okay if I just call you up on the telephone, the old-fashioned way? In this manner, I can hear your voice, your inflection, your pauses, your context - in short, all those extralinguistic cues that help me navigate within our conversation and make our exchange pleasant and rewarding. I have perpetual thumb cramp from trying to keep up with my friends, who evidently all sport mini-QWERTY's on their phones, while I hunt and peck through my traditional ten digits and the predictive text feature on my humble Samsung reveals, yet again, that its vocabulary is far inferior to my own. I think a reasonable rule of thumb, so to speak, would be that if you have more than two questions to ask me upon whose answer the direction of our conversation is contingent, call me. This will save me twenty cents, and potentially carpal tunnel syndrome, and last I checked is still the quickest and most efficient means for two people to exchange information.

Secondly: just because I am on facebook, this does not mean that I am obligated to give you a detailed report of my activities on a daily basis, nor that I should be expected to know everything about you all the time. In fact, it would be nearly impossible for me to know everything about you all the time, given that I would likely have to spend the bulk of my day slogging through everything about all 150 of my friends all the time in order to keep up. Seriously, if I call you up and say "well hello there, friend, how was your day?", are you really going to say "well, I woke up, and it was nice out, so I was happy, but then I was hungry, so I had some breakfast, and then I wasn't hungry anymore, so I decided to get ready for work but the shower was cold, so I was annoyed, and then..."? I think you are a sensible enough person to summarize and edit the minutiae of your day before talking to me, and that this has a lot to do with why we are friends in the above scenario, so why in God's name does this seem like an appropriate facebook status update? Considering the way some people appear to be using facebook, it's a wonder that anyone's status is ever anything other than "drowning in other people's facebook status updates".

I guess my point is that just because I'm not that up on my social networking doesn't mean that I'm a snob or a bad person or antisocial or that I don't like you anymore. Not so very long ago, if memory serves, technology was just one means of facilitating communication between folks. No one thought less of you or laid a big guilt trip on you if you only turned up on MSN Messenger a couple of times a month. Now, suddenly, we seem to have forgotten that the beauty of social networking technology is its versatility: people are free to engage with it however they want, however frequently or seldom they wish, and whenever they choose.

Got a problem with that? I'll be home in an hour or two. Come knock on my door, I'll brew you a cup of coffee, and we can talk about it. Face to face.

enough

Dear students,

News flash: I don't care why you didn't come to class yesterday, or the day before, or the day before, unless you have a doctor's note you'd like me to use to excuse your absences. I don't care about whatever technological melt-down prevented you from turning in your homework. I don't care how sick your roommate's cousin's cat is. All I care about is that you a.) show up, b.) do the work, and c.) don't waste my time on some elaborate excuse as to why you failed to do a.) or b.). It's embarrassing for both of us.

Even saying that I care about a.), b.) and c.) would be overstating things. Really, all I care about is c.). It really doesn't affect me one way or the other if you fail my class, unless it's due to me not holding up my end of the educational bargain. Since I know that this is not the case, I'm just not losing sleep over it. My job is to provide you with resources and opportunities that will facilitate your learning. Your job is to avail yourself of those resources and opportunities. At most, your failure to do your job inconveniences me in the extent to which it infringes upon the time and energy I should be devoting to doing my job (hint: the less infringement here, the better).

It may come as a surprise to you that my personal opinion of you has nothing to do with the grade you will receive, and as a consequence your reason for dropping the ball will have little bearing on the outcome. Unless you can prove to me that the fates have aligned against you - which happens to us all at times - your reasons for dropping the ball or how nice a person you are will, in fact, have no bearing whatsoever on the grade I give you. If you choose to try to prove to me that the fates have aligned against you, you better be ready to bring it.

Student A: I'm sorry your boyfriend is in the hospital. But Jason so-and-so could be your eighth cousin twice removed as far as I know, and even if I accept that he is, in fact, your boyfriend, I fail to see how his emergency room visit last week should excuse your absences for roughly half the semester.

Student B: I can't figure out how the university's network could so maliciously hide the two web-based assignments you swear you did (out of the four I assigned), considering that I can see all the work that everyone else did without a single problem. Don't think that the growing complexity of your excuse (you can see it when you log in, etc.) will prevent me from frog-marching you down to the computer lab to show me what the network evidently can't. Tell me, exactly how far would you like to take this?

Student C: You were notified of today's assignment two weeks ago, during two consecutive class periods of which you attended neither. When you attempted to find an online copy so that you could start the work this afternoon before class, you learned there wasn't any. Moreover, I failed to bring hard copies of the assignment I administered fully two weeks ago and, since I had heard nothing to the contrary until today, THE DUE DATE, assumed you knew about. You have five classes. I have nearly a hundred students. At any given moment, a dozen or so of these students have some contingency going on (some legitimate, others not at all) that desperately needs my special consideration. Tell me, whose job do you think it is to make sure you know what's going on?

I will not claim to be the world's most organized and responsible person. Far from it. Nonetheless, it is now my job to instill in you all a spirit of accountability for your own actions, and this is one responsibility I take very seriously.

Whatever you think, it's not me you're mad at right now.

have you seen me?

Lost: mojo.

Missing since: Beginning of second semester as a college professor.

Description: shimmering, mercurial, brilliant blue, shape-shifting veil of creativity and energy.

Last seen with: Girlish Laughter, Sense of Purpose, Childlike Wonder.

Also answers to: juju, pilas, chutzpah, moxie.

Reward: back handspring, Great American Novel.

If found, please: just send smoke signals or leave it in a basket on the front stoop, or else slip it quietly back into its place and I'll never know you're the one who took it.

projects, fall 2008

Here are some projects that I've been meaning to post about for a while now. Namely, since the fall. I won't even start on the winter ones in this round. Suffice it to say, I've been busy.

These were felted wool and corduroy masks for a Halloween masquerade street fair in our neighborhood. Too bad everybody was passed out by the time we hit the streets.

Everybody told me I should just give up on this metal cabinet. I admit, it was more shabby than chic, and it got old having to vacuum up the paint chips once a week. Instead, I took some steel wool and WD-40 to it and stripped it down to this:
Next, I spray-painted it with Rustoleum to try to contain the creeping rust, then applied dark brown paint, then a crackle glaze, and finally an apple green paint. Maybe my friends were right and I should have left well enough alone, but I'm happy with the results:

I found this telescoping table at a garage sale. It looks like an innocent buffet here, but it seats fifteen people when you put the leaves in. Perfect when you have no idea whether your next place is going to have a dining room, but definitely needed some touching up.

This is after stripping it and refinishing with a cherry gel stain (additional cherry artwork courtesy of Nohemí Lugo, table runner by yours truly):Andy had this dresser with the paper-thin oak veneer finish and colonial-ish hardware:
and he kindly let me paint it and replace the hardware. The table runner, I made a couple years back:

This was the bike I got when I was twelve. Back when a rainbow pastel bike was a hot item. The best bike I've ever had, but definitely needed some updates.

Again, WD-40 and a green kitchen scrubbie took the rust out of the chrome.Emory bikes were handmade in Jacksonville, Florida. Some time soon I'll go back and spraypaint a bit more carefully around the emblem.

The handlebars were covered in this crappy black foam, which we peeled off to reveal pristine chrome. Since this photo, it's had new whitewalls, a new chain, and new grips (not pink). Phase three starts in the spring: fenders, a basket, and a new seat, and it'll be a bona fide cruiser.So there you go. Stay tuned for winter's projects.